22 Sep 22:05 Flavors of the Month

F. P. Journe – Octa Chronographe

By Shawn Mehta

For those that do not know, I have been trying to hunt down a resonance for the better part of two years now! If you had asked me what would have been the perfect resonance back then I would have steered towards a platinum case paired with a rare pink gold dial powered by a brass movement – caliber 1499. About a year and half ago the entire market dynamics of the resonance changed. Ordinary pieces are now deemed rare, rare pieces are now deemed as the untouchables and the rarest of the rarest are buried deep within collections. To be fair, I had been offered beautiful examples throughout the last two years although I did not bite the bait, much to my regret.

One evening I thought to message a friend of mine who lives in Hong Kong and works in the trade, I had sent her an image of an early resonance and tourbillon. She is the type of person that would be able to find a needle in a haystack! Her initial response was “FPJ, is beautiful, I like this watch – teach me more?” I quickly ran through the basics of the collection Chronometre Souverain / Octa and how to tell them apart from the power reserves. For those of you that are unaware a quick way to tell which piece belongs to which collection is to look at the power reserve. The Octa’s power reserve start at 0 to 120 whereas the Chronometre Souverain’s start at 56 to 0. I informed her that I was looking for a brass movement either a resonance or tourbillon. “I see what I can find speak soon” … a few days later she sent me an image of an Octa Chronographe, it was a stunning example although I had never really considered this model. At quick glance I mentioned to her that it did have a great dial and a brass movement to which she responded “What is a brass movement? – Teach me this brand!” After having missed out on several resonances, I could not make the same mistake again … which is why I confirmed to purchase the watch within a few minutes of having been offered it (bearing in mind that I had never seen the watch in person). I had an inclination that the date was not in working condition.

Four months later, I finally took delivery of this rather ‘mysterious’ piece. Yes, I had seen images of the piece although images can distort reality. I kept wondering what my new born would look like! At first glance the dial caught my attention, from hues of dark brown to almost mistaking the dial for white gold. The platinum case was in immaculate condition for a watch from 2002 showing little signs of wear. The date made me laugh as flicked through the dates, 2 to 9 fine … followed by 00 … 11 to 19 fine … followed by 10 … 21 to 29 fine … followed by 20 31 32 and back to 02. The previous owner never had the watch serviced. I was not entirely sure how receptive I would be towards the dial being split in two, that being said the way the chronographe is incorporated into the piece is somewhat discrete.

“François Paul considers this dial to be an inverted sock, he related this to the Octa RDM and described this as the full dial, if inverted like a sock it would look like the Octa Chronographe. ”

The lack of a power reserve makes the piece all the more charming, the caliber 1300 is found across the F. P. Journe Octa line (till date). With hindsight the Octa Chronographe allows us to appreciate François Paul’s vision of a future sportsline. The main counter for the seconds of the chronographe is found in the dead centre of the dial, fast forward to today the Chronographe Monopoussoir Rattrapante also displays this. What I find the most pleasing is that if the left hand side of the dial were to be covered it would look like an ordinary dress watch, the discreteness of the chronograph is very well balanced within the timepiece.

It is said that only 34 pieces were produced in this exact configuration (PT/YG) with a brass movement. Out of the 34 pieces 3 of them feature straight cote de geneve whereas the other 31 feature circular cote de geneve. According to our research the rarest configuration during the brass era was the red gold case with a pink gold dial, it said that only 14 of these examples exist, 2 feature staright cote de geneve and the 12 other feature circular cote de geneve.

We will be releasing a detailed collectors guide specifically for the Octa Chronographe in due course.